The loyalty of leadership all the way up and down to the fresh E5 is generally to the process first and to the favor of the soldier second. This ensures the proper steps are followed with the necessary supporting documents with keeping all parties informed and protected. The goal is benefit or improve them opposed to harming a soldier unless the facts dictate the soldier has violated a law or is at risk of harming themselves or others.
People are generally eager to do what they believe is the right thing, which means disclosing all manners of information. As an investigating officer my job is to gather the relevant facts of an incident, write a report, disclose any additionally discovered violations, and provide a recommendation to a commanding officer. The commander, in consultation with a lawyer, will impose a legal action, order a change, or recommend the case to a more appropriate venue.
Never would an investigator falsify a report because they will be prosecuted as a criminal. It’s simply not worth it to protect people who are typically strangers to the investigator. After all the system will generally look out for the soldier but not at the risk of other people. With as much support and aid as the military provides its hard to empathize with breaking the law.
Perhaps the biggest differences between the military and police that I have observed is that the military attempts to resolve problems at the lowest level the law/policy allows. Ignoring misconduct is generally a symptom of toxic leadership that will eventually grow out of control. There is also no risk of civil suits.
For police it appears misconduct is either a slap on the hand that means little or the community is throwing the books at those guys with life destroying prison time and police can also be sued. That imposes a lot of risks that don’t exist in the military. It’s not just the officer that’s at risk but a law suit on top of a criminal prosecution imposes financial harm on their family which adds to the risk pressures.
Also policing entails far greater ambiguity at great quantity of decisions than the military typically handles. It’s one thing to blame a person for something after the fact but it’s different when you are there in the moment and have to make hard decisions under time pressure.
> For police it appears misconduct is either a slap on the hand that means little or the community is throwing the books at those guys with life destroying prison time and police can also be sued.
The bar is _amazingly_ high for a personal suit to even be _allowed_ against a police officer. Most unions have it in their contract that the department/city/county has to assume good faith and defend their officers, including defending their 'qualified immunity'. I'd argue that isn't a real threat to most officers, and if it is, there's a reason behind it.
Similar for me as a paramedic. If I'm operating within my scope of practice, within my departments policies and procedures, medical direction or my own reasonable clinical judgment, I'm not getting sued personally. The County and the Department are hit first, and even in the event that somehow through that, I'm personally sued, my Department's policy is that as long as I was within policy and procedure, they and their insurance will indemnify.
It would take something outrageously egregious. Near here we had a situation where EMS was called out for a death, with no coroner/ME/funeral home available. EMS took the body to the fire station for temporary storage, no more than a couple of hours at most.
All good so far.
Less good: allowing personnel to practice intubation of the body in the hallway, without consent. Allowing _non medical_ personnel (front office reception) to also practice. Worst: be doing this still when the person's family shows up at the fire station.
Even that didn't result in all the lawsuits you'd think it might. (Sadly. That was absolutely atrocious, despicable, unethical).
Like you said, the invstigator of a CDI is someone who is higher rank than everyone involved (so there's no attempt at sway), and someone very far removed from everyone else. This way the CDI can provide a fair and impartial judgement of a situation and if it should lead to further action.
One of the biggest take aways that I had was when the accused was a straight up jerk to me, and made my investigation as difficult as they possibly could. I am still amazed that someone whose livelyhood was in my hands would be so rude to that person. It would have been also incredibly easy for me to record facts to sway the information I had to the point that the accused would have gotten in more trouble (I did not do that).
I say that to put myself into the shoes of a police officer. I can only imagine how that would grate on someone who had to deal with it on a semi-routine basis.
It’s probably almost identical. In the Army the investigating officer does not have to be a higher grade to run the investigation, but a higher grade preferred because UCMJ requires a higher grade to charge an officer with a crime.
Yeah, witnesses and the accused have always been very straight with me because, as you said, their careers are in my hands. I believe if somebody were being hostile or deceptive with me I would dig deeper.
My biggest learnings from these is be careful what you wish for. If somebody is reporting a crime or requesting an IG investigation I will be completely objective and impartial. However, when you start digging into people like that all kinds of incidental unrelated private things can shake out from discovery, and if any of those things are a violation of ethics there is now grounds for a separate additional investigation.
https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/documents/sja/15...
The loyalty of leadership all the way up and down to the fresh E5 is generally to the process first and to the favor of the soldier second. This ensures the proper steps are followed with the necessary supporting documents with keeping all parties informed and protected. The goal is benefit or improve them opposed to harming a soldier unless the facts dictate the soldier has violated a law or is at risk of harming themselves or others.
People are generally eager to do what they believe is the right thing, which means disclosing all manners of information. As an investigating officer my job is to gather the relevant facts of an incident, write a report, disclose any additionally discovered violations, and provide a recommendation to a commanding officer. The commander, in consultation with a lawyer, will impose a legal action, order a change, or recommend the case to a more appropriate venue.
Never would an investigator falsify a report because they will be prosecuted as a criminal. It’s simply not worth it to protect people who are typically strangers to the investigator. After all the system will generally look out for the soldier but not at the risk of other people. With as much support and aid as the military provides its hard to empathize with breaking the law.
Perhaps the biggest differences between the military and police that I have observed is that the military attempts to resolve problems at the lowest level the law/policy allows. Ignoring misconduct is generally a symptom of toxic leadership that will eventually grow out of control. There is also no risk of civil suits.
For police it appears misconduct is either a slap on the hand that means little or the community is throwing the books at those guys with life destroying prison time and police can also be sued. That imposes a lot of risks that don’t exist in the military. It’s not just the officer that’s at risk but a law suit on top of a criminal prosecution imposes financial harm on their family which adds to the risk pressures.
Also policing entails far greater ambiguity at great quantity of decisions than the military typically handles. It’s one thing to blame a person for something after the fact but it’s different when you are there in the moment and have to make hard decisions under time pressure.